Ask the Patriarch 134
I want to make a donation.

from John Pap

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Hello,

I am Mr. John Pap. I stays in Texas, I will help you with a token of $950 so that you can continue with the good job you are doing.

Send me the below information.

Name...
Address...
City..
State..
Country..
Zipcode

and your cell phone number.

So that I can send you a check.

I will continue praying for you so much. You can get back to me and I will as well be by your side at any point in need.

I await to hear from you.

John

The Patriarch replies:

Dear Mr. Pap:

I am going to answer this as a genuine offer, even though there are numerous indications in your message that it is not. And I am quite leery of correspondence routed through an IP addresses in the Middle East.

It has been my policy not to accept donations.[1] I fund my efforts out of my personal resources. And to be honest with you, if $950 were to arrive in the mail tomorrow, it is highly unlikely that it would be spent on the Apathetic Agnostic Church. Probably it would be spent on whisky and women, not necessarily in that order. And if it arrived on a rare day of financial sensibility, it would be used to make a small dent in my credit card debt.

As someone who prefers to be law-abiding, if I were to accept donations, I would feel it necessary to do it properly, with registration as a charitable organization, find a Board of Directors, have annual elections, conduct a full accounting of revenue and expenditures, issuance of receipts, preparation of annual audited financial statements etc. I have no expectation that there would be enough donations to cover the amount of work additional required.

Thank you for your offer, but I must decline.

If you really want to help, one or more written articles for the web site would be most welcome.

Best wishes

Footnote:

This policy is not completely inflexible. If there is someone with far more money than they know what to do with, who feels strongly compelled to provide assistance, then I would not object to that person creating a well-funded (six or seven figures) foundation to provide me with ongoing support. It's a nice fantasy, anyway.